After a while …
Same with me. I worked in my initial job until all the important things (house!) were paid off. After that and way past the age of 40 I was finally able (financially) to switch to my side job of flying business aircraft for good. No more sitting in front of computer screens and in boring meetings, but getting paid – even if on the lowish side of the payscale – to fly. Aircraft of which I could not have afforded to fly a single hour per month in the days of my highest income. No loans and payments to worry about. And even paid (including expenses) to spend the weekend on the Cote d’Azur 
Why should I ever buy my own plane again?
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
Do you have grandparents you can leave the kids with while you and you wife go off on flying honeymoons to the Frisian Islands and later south of the Alps? A good tactic might be developing a Pavlovian reflex in you wife: plane = time alone with husband…
what_next wrote:
Why should I ever buy my own plane again?
What do you plan for fun in retirement? I’m guessing you’ve already bought and paid for the stuff you need to do it.
Me too. When I’ve stopped working I plan on flying for a while, fiddling on planes and bikes in my hangar when not flying, and hanging out with my friends at the airport. Then maybe when I’m sufficiently decrepit, I’ll sell plane(s) and maybe some motorcycles too, and use the money to buy an old sports car. I had dinner with a older friend last night, his Comanche eventually became a Lotus Elan and he spends some of his free time driving with his wife in the Alps, staying in nice hotels but wintering at home where it is warm and he can drive something else. Mostly paid for by things he bought in the 1970’s.
Silvaire wrote:
What do you plan for fun in retirement?
I will continue to instruct, medical permitting. For me that’s always been the most rewarding thing in aviation. Teaching others to do what I like doing myself.
Homebuilding is also high on the list. If I will be able to remember what they taught me about aeronautics at university. Or maybe fly to Mars. Right now they think about using older astronauts for that because their remaining lifespan will not be affected as much by the radiation dose one inevitably receives during the trip.
Timothy wrote:
You have missed out the once rich, now broke, who have piston twins.
Rich/Broke – Piston Twin <— added
Peter wrote:
At the other end of the spectrum you have an owner with a private hangar and a nearby A&P/IA (an N-reg plane, obviously ) and then the sun is shining and the birds are singing
Working on it!!!
Mooney_Driver wrote:
LOL, well, a bit simplified but yea. I’d be saying that Mooneys, you’d have to split them up between vintage and the more modern ones and in maintenance I’d place the vintage ones below the Cessnas, which bit quite a few people in Germany when they had to do the SID. Pipers (especcially the PA28) come to mind in the same class as well.
True that!
MedEwok wrote:
would you take out a loan for buying an aircraft or rather be sure you have enough cash first?
Maybe if you were single and could get an amazing interest rate that made it a better option than using cash (but you should still have proper capital to back it).
Considering your position (young family, future house in the picture), no way.
what_next wrote:
Right now they think about using older astronauts for that because their remaining lifespan will not be affected as much by the radiation dose one inevitably receives during the trip.
Not to mention that it is 99% likely to be a one-way-trip anyway… (like it was for so many explorers of the earth)
what_next wrote:
I worked in my initial job until all the important things (house!) were paid off
Yea, sure – but: then reality sets in, and your first wife leaves and you have to pay for the house yet another time all over, probably even more because the hose prices has more than doubled in the mean time. Then your new wife already has lots of kids, so you have to get a new and bigger one, or extend the one you have. Or even worse, much worse – you end up with a 20 years younger new wife. one that wants everything, kids, nice house and so on. That younger one will of course also leave sooner or later, it’s inevitable when she reaches the mid 30s and you are in the mid/late 50s, and it’s all over again with paying for your house the third time. Now you are getting old and are completely fed up with houses, so you just sell it all and move into a caravan or house boat or something, a small flat maybe.
I main, raise your hand everyone who has paid for your house twice (Luckily my second wife is the same age as me, and I say luckily, there is no way of knowing these things, or planning for them. Life just happen)
The simple way to make a lot of money and do all your hobbies is to
Then you will make millions, by the time you are 50. But with so much time and income, you won’t need millions to do as much flying as you want
The next best option is to choose a woman who likes you as you are i.e. supports your principal hobby. Most men don’t do that, for some reason. I recommend internet dating
Once you have a family with children, having a business is the best way to achieve the various goals.
Peter wrote:
The simple way to make a lot of money and do all your hobbies is tostay single
keep your trousers zipped up
work 80hrs/week with a marketable skill
Then you will make millions
Considering the first and second item, this is as useless an advice as you can read in many “self realizing” books about how to be successful:
Indeed; I wasn’t suggesting it is practical 
But you don’t need a PhD in “life” to work out where the biggest chunk of time and money goes… it goes on children, and everything else that correlates with having children.
